


There Will Be Sun

by amb-roses (overtture)



Category: All Elite Wrestling, Professional Wrestling
Genre: Comfort No Hurt, Early Mornings, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gender-neutral Reader, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Other, POV Second Person, Reader-Insert, Tenderness, ask to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-16 12:08:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21035999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtture/pseuds/amb-roses
Summary: Early into a crisp autumn morning, you bundle up with heated blankets and warm mugs to help your best friend Adam design his new gear for All Out.





	There Will Be Sun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emmygranger95](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmygranger95/gifts).

> a lot of ppl have been interpreting page as a gruff cowboy and while i can understand and accept that. please take some soft adam bc he is very sweet & has a smile like the sun & im love him a lot okay! have some reader/page for my dear friend & local cowboy lover, hope u like it emi!!
> 
> as usual ill edit this through tomorrow, enjoy!

"Gold? Something warm, maybe an orange, rust?" Your partner proposes, shifting his well-worn mug in hand and blinking through the steam. 

Autumn entered quick on the heels of late summer, the results of a particularly crisp cold front bringing hot drinks and the thicker covers from the closet. You tuck the throw blanket a little more aggressively over both your legs as the dreadful outdoor chill creeps in on cue, sinking deeper into the cushions even as he traces a fingernail over the arch of your closest foot, twisting deftly out of the way of your kick. Damn tease, even half awake at too-early o'clock.

You make another unsure noise, relishing just a bit at the irritated twitch of his lips, crinkle of his nose. He had a way of indecision at the most inconvenient of times. His knee jerk intuition was spot on, never steered him wrong, but give him too many variables and he tripped on himself overthinking. It mostly manifested in morning meetings like these, you shoving mugs in his hands as you helped him untangle the ball of thoughts that kept him from sleep.

"Well, okay," he tries again. "Maybe a bronze? Or a color again, like the red. You can't go wrong with red."

"No, you can," you correct him with a slight shudder. "You can go wrong with _ anything. _ What about silver?"

"Silver?" He perks up, blinking properly awake and absentmindedly scratching at his stubble, just to the side of overgrown by his usual standards.

"Yeah, like," you purse your lips carefully in thought, taking a bidding sip of your warm drink. Just the right amount of kick in cream and sugar to your liking, heating your insides pleasantly. He refused to tell you his secrets. Maybe he was a barista in a past life. "You've done red before, recently too, you should stay away from warm colors, and I'm guessing you're going to stick to the bedazzled ass, so…"

"I'll bedazzle _ your _ ass," he remarked with a cheeky wink and wide, toothy smile, then a little more thoughtful. "Silver… do you have anything silver? Just to eyeball it?"

"No, I don't look good in silver." 

"Now who told you that?" He made a face at you. "You look good in everything."

Heat bloomed in your cheeks at the simple, factual tone, and you quickly dug back into your mug with renewed interest. "I wouldn't say_ that _much…"

"Well, I would," he insists, sitting up and folding his legs in. The tilt of his head reminds you of a puppy, golden curls spilling over his shoulder. “You really don’t believe that?”

“I _ know _for a fact I don’t look good in everything, is all,” you correct. “Unfortunately, nobody looks good in everything, Mister Page, and that includes me.”

“You do! _ I know _ for a fact you look good in anything and everything,” he said, eyes softening around the edges, accent honey-sweet around his vowels. “You’re one’a the most beautiful people I’ve ever had the fortune to meet, really.” 

You put your mug down, covering your face with a hand as the flush intensified. _ “Adam.” _

He parroted your name in the same whiny tone, carefully peeling your hand away and holding it in his own lap, tracing the lines of your hand with his thumb pad, smiling a little down at your palm when your fingers twitched in response. 

“You're one of the most beautiful people I've ever met. Maybe not to yourself, or by all those shitty _conventional beauty standards, _which are all bullshit anyway, everyone knows that," the nasal tone he takes makes you snort despite yourself, his smile widening with a muffled _what?_ when you give him a light smack on the cheek and shove his face. "I'm serious!"

"I know," you retort, because you do, Adam Page really, truly believes what he’s saying. As brutal and blank faced as he could be in the ring, he was horribly genuine outside of it. You took one of his now-idle hands in your own, feeling over the mounds and slopes of it for yourself. 

He used to have thick, rough calluses on his hands, farm work and wrestling, before he'd approached you about skincare and lotion of all things. _ My hands are too rough, _ he confided one day, far away from the judging gazes of his friends, figure towering as he cornered you. _ Too rough to handle delicate things. I don’t know how to soften them up. _ It had made you laugh, loud, gross, full-chested laughter, the kind of ugly laugh you would be mortified about in any other scenario, but he’d looked so _ lost _ as he fidgeted in front of you _ . _

Hangman Adam Page, Cody’s right-hand, a member of the Elite, Joey Ryan’s murderer, six feet and nearly two hundred and twenty pounds of impressive, intimidating musculature.

And he was pouting at you, _ pouting, _face blazing red with a heat you could nearly feel as he tucked a curl behind an ear, smiling back sheepishly as he realized your giggles weren't malicious in nature.

It had been one of your first outings together, him clinging dutifully and attentively to your arm as you led him about the mall, explaining the intricacies of routines and what worked for you. You couldn’t help but marvel at his amazed expression after the first week, his hands cupped in your own as you noted the changes, the awe in his eyes as you explained what else he could try, and _ I’m going to a new store, they’ve got a lot of homemade soap and organic bath bombs, if you’d like to join? _

Then came the bashful smiles as you complimented his efforts, feeling the difference for yourself and memorizing the soft texture and softer glances from under his eyelashes as he held patiently still. He would curl his fingers around yours with a cheeky snicker that became booming laughter as you dug your fingers in his ribs and took off at a sprint, leaving him to trip after you and eventually catch you with thick arms around your waist. A stubbled chin in your shoulder, the crook of your neck, his wide chest vibrating with heaving laughter and hitched breathing against your back, his hair barely held together with a hair-tie, thick strands curling around his face, loose and wild. 

Then he would remember himself, step back with a murmured apology, his hands quickly in his pockets. Closed off with a clearing of his throat and sideways glance. And so the cycle would begin again, a clumsy dance of back and forth compliments, some flirting here and there, a toe over the line of teasing and quickly back to the beginning.

But even now, his hands as softened and smoothed as a wrestler's could be, he came to you for guidance. Clothes, skincare, anything and everything, your opinion was one of his most valued. Not to say he couldn’t make his own decisions, but he sought your insight often, and your company whenever he could get it.

"I wanted to thank you," he suddenly blurts. You fight to control the heat in your face. How long had you'd been staring and feeling up his hands?

"Thank me for what?" You manage past the heartbeat lodged tight in your throat.

"For everything," he says, simply. "Your help. Your company. It's…" he struggled for words, nose crinkling and smoothing, "invaluable, really."

"Page," you started.

"No, honest," he insisted, ducking his head and avoiding your gaze. "You've been such a big help and the best friend someone could have, every day I think of how lucky I am to know you, wonder what I did to deserve you, I don't know, just–"

"Page."

"–I don't know what I would do without you, you really mean a lot to me, you're the best, you're really the kindest, smartest, most beautiful person I've ever met, and I just wish I could–"

You took his jaw firmly in hand and turned his face to yours, locking eye contact. _ "Adam." _

A violent shiver rattled him to head to toe, strong enough you could feel him shake under your grasp as his pupils dilated sharply, washed out blue swallowed by the dark of it. You jerked away as though burned, shame mounting.

_ "Shit, _sorry, that was– you were spiraling, but that was way out of line, inappropriate–"

"Inappropriate ain't bad, sweetheart," his smile was shaky. Had he always been that shade of red? "Jus' gotta warn a guy." He avoided your gaze for a long moment, worrying the inside of his cheek.

"Adam?"

He glanced down at your loosely intertwined fingers and then back up at you, biting his lip with a coy smile. "Would you be okay? With inappropriate conduct, that is."

Your breath hitched. Was he–? "Depends on the kind."

The resulting silence wasn't heavy but feather-light and careful, stretching from one second to two, two to three, three to six, until you’ve suddenly got a lap full of cowboy. You're suddenly overwhelmed with _ Adam, _the heat of him enveloping your lap, moving smoothly into your space, the rich, earthy musk of him under laundry detergent and the salty-sweet beach and spring scented candles that burned around the room.

A few toes over the line.

The moment lengthens again, and you let yourself lean in to meet him as he ever so carefully reaches to cradle your face. He looks mesmerized, dazed and flushed as his eyes track your face, from the angles of your cheek to your lips, to the burn of your cheeks and to your lips again.

"Well?" You ask. "Get after it, cowboy."

A giggle bubbles out of him, something small and joyful that makes his cheeks rounder and rosier, makes those final wrinkles smooth over before he traces a loving line over your cheeks with his thumb pads and kisses you soundly.

It's clumsy and a little rough, the coarseness of his beard under your fingertips as you trace his jaw back, your teeth clacking together awkwardly a few times, enthusiastic, but genuine in a way that makes your stomach flip and your heart yank. It's the kind of kiss that reads _ Adam, _ because he's a big, strong Virginian boy with a farming background and wrestling profession and he's _ sweet _ on you.

The soft of his palms that cradle you, the sugar sweet of _ him, _the electricity that sparks between you, static and sharp, hair-raising and lovingly tender in the same breath. You think you might be sweet on him, too, a little drunk on the rush that comes with the blissed out look on his face, lips slightly swollen, washed-out ocean eyes gleaming and lashes fluttering against soft cheekbones. 

You think you can feel your blanket finally slip off your lap and onto the floor, but you can't find yourself able to break from this little slice of rapture that warms you inside out without a warm drink or heated blanket needed, because wouldn't you know it– you can taste autumn's, winter's thaw on his lips, sugar, sunrise, spring.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh if I could, I'd will these clouds away, my love  
I'd wave my hand, reveal the stars  
Oh if I could, I'd hold the tide at bay, my love
> 
> But clouds will come and tides will turn, and all I have to offer is  
Tomorrow, spring will come, and then  
There will be blue skies, my friend  
Bright eyes and laughter


End file.
